ve done on this occasion?
He would certainly have made Arcite witty on his deathbed. He had
complained he was farther off from possession by being so near, and a
thousand such boyisms, which Chaucer rejected as below the dignity of
the subject. They who think otherwise would, by the same reason, prefer
Lucan and Ovid to Homer and Virgil, and Martial to all four of them. As
for the turn of words, in which Ovid particularly excels all poets, they
are sometimes a fault, and sometimes a beauty, as they are used properly
or improperly; but in strong passions always to be shunned, because
passions are serious, and will admit no playing. The French have a high
value for them; and I confess, they are often what they call delicate,
when they are introduced with judgment; but Chaucer writ with more
simplicity, and followed nature more closely, than to use them. I have
thus far, to the best of my knowledge, been an upright judge betwixt the
parties in competition, not meddling with the design nor the disposition
of it; because the design was not their own, and in the disposing of it
they were eqaal. It remains that I say somewhat of Chaucer in
particular.

In the first place, as he is the father of English poetry, so I hold him
in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or the
Romans Virgil. He is a perpetual fountain of good sense; learned in all
sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all subjects; as he knew what
to say, so he knows also when to leave off--a continence which is
practised by few writers, and scarcely by any of the ancients, excepting
Virgil and Horace. One of our late great poets is sunk in his
reputation, because he could never forgive any conceit which came in his
way; but swept like a drag-net, great and small. There was plenty
enough, but the dishes were ill-sorted; whole pyramids of sweetmeats,
for boys and women; but little of solid meat, for men. All this
proceeded not from any want of knowledge, but of judgment; neither did
he want that in discerning the beauties and faults of other poets; but
only indulged himself in the luxury of writing; and perhaps knew it was
a fault, but hoped the reader would not find it. For this reason, though
he must always be thought a great poet, he is no longer esteemed a good
writer; and for ten impressions, which his works have had in so many
successive years, yet at present a hundred books are scarcely purchased
once a twelvemonth: for, as my last Lor